The Government yesterday launched a new schools white paper – Every Child Achieving and Thriving - which sets out a vision for education over the next decade. It reaffirms changes in policy introduced since the 2024 general election, and sets out targets for improvements in attendance, attainment and inclusion.

In her foreword, Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson set out three broad themes underpinning the white paper:

• Shifting the approach from narrow to broad, including emphasising what happens beyond the school gates, with a rich and broad curricula and enrichment as an entitlement for all.
• Delivering inclusion, by supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to attend their local mainstream school, and by supporting underperforming groups including white working-class children.
• Improving attendance, by making children and families believe in education again with children attending and participating at school daily and parents supporting learning at home.

The white paper is vast in scope, and for an analysis of the proposals more widely Schools Week’s summary is well worth a read. Within are measures relating to PE and school sport, some new and some announced previously, as well as possible opportunities to harness the power of physical activity. These include:

• Providing greater opportunities to all children, including by strengthening the arts, music and PE curriculum, and giving every child access to a strong and well-rounded enrichment offer. An Enrichment Framework published later this year will set out benchmarks, with Ofsted’s updated inspection toolkits taking these into account from September 2026, and information included within school profiles by the end of the Parliament.
• The Enrichment Framework will support delivery of a core enrichment offer, with schools expected to provide activities themed around civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities, and the development of wider life skills. To support this £22.5m will be invested over 3 years, enabling up to 400 schools in the most deprived areas to meet the enrichment benchmarks.
• Enhanced PE and School Sports Partnerships will be introduced, supporting the ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever by expanding opportunities for children to access high-quality PE, sport and physical activity.
• A new Pupil Engagement Framework will be published later this year, supporting schools to measure factors determining children’s engagement in education and make improvements, as part of ambition for every school to monitor belonging and engagement by 2029. This will highlight good practice and provide schools with well-evidenced questions for children that are actionable.
• Plans to invest in children’s play areas and funding through Youth Matters to create spaces for children and young people in their communities are highlighted, as is the spending of more than £400m on new and upgraded grassroots community sports facilities.
• Two place-focused missions are introduced (North East, and Coastal), to radically improve outcomes for white working-class children and young people, by bringing together clusters of schools, diagnosing shared barriers and developing strategies for improvement.
• Funding partnerships will be developed between early years settings and schools, to test different approaches to transition and ensure children feel at home when they transition to school.
• Schools, trusts, local authorities and health services will be required to work together, as part of an ambition to design services around children and families and share accountability for children’s outcomes across local communities. Linked to this is funding from education and health for Best Start Family Hubs, which will provide a single point of access to healthcare services, as well as advice on learning at home, and stay and play services.

Alongside this, the Government also published a new consultation on proposed SEND reform - Putting Children and Young People First. This includes five principles underpinning reform - early, local, fair, effective and shared - with an ambition for more children to be educated in a local mainstream school, as part of their local community, with flexible, timely and accessible support. Again, Schools Week’s summary helpfully summarises key proposals.

The scale of change proposed in the white paper and linked SEND reform is vast, and will take time to digest fully. We are pleased PE and school sport is part of the Government’s new vision for education and hope the full potential of physical activity to support progress in education and improved wellbeing can be unlocked, and look forward to making this argument as implementation begins.